In this case, I mean that quite literally. The planned route of the Canal Rojo appears to have taken a small twist in response to either local opposition or ecological concerns, take your pick. The announcement came last Saturday in an almost offhand manner, with no details.
Here is a close-up of the original route, as stated by HKND. El Tule is the town that protested vociferously. The blue-striped area is a Ramsar-designated wetland. (Ramsar is a U.N. convention that protects wetlands; negotiations finished in 1971 and the convention came into force in 1975.) The brown-striped areas are where HKND intends to dump material from the canal excavation.
On January 15th, a Ramsar delegation arrived to study the effect of the Canal on the San Miguelito wetlands, which would seem an odd thing to do if the Canal was now expected to bypass them. (Here is a link to the July 2014 presentation by ERM, which confirms the above route ... and says that HKND intends to consult with Ramsar over compensation for the wetlands, not over how to avoid them.) Below is a map from Nicaragua Dispatch showing the new dog-leg in the route, although I am not sure where they got it from.
It all seems a little ad hoc for a $50 billion project that has supposedly already started.
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